"Hey!"

Elan chuckled. "Don't stay naked if you don't want us to see." She finished with a wink. I turned to Lakeesha but she was only looking.

I shook my head and turned to Wan. "Do you have spare clothes?"

He nodded and took them out. There was only one set of clothes. He then started wearing them. Seeing this I sighed. "Anybody have something I can hide my body with?"

Jade nodded and took out a cloak. I have a little bit expected her to wear herself too but thankfully she gave it to me. I quickly wore it on my waist and carefully bind it so cloak doesn't fall. Seeing this Elan made an 'aww' sound but I didn't spare her any of my attention.

After probably memorizing the Class, Jade passed the paper to Lakeesha who started reading it right away. After a while, Elan and Wan joined her too. I just stood there without doing anything.

After everything was done, we started going roughly the way we came. We passed where we entered and after a few minutes, we reached the gate. I put my hand on the door and I was outside. After others got out too, we headed towards the city. I was pretty excited to see the worth of our troubles. Though I didn't do much, I was still going to gain more than I gained in a week.

We reached in front of a shop called Beauty Clothy. I went inside with Wan and looked around. There were all kinds of clothes. I quickly found two sets of black clothes and bought them. Then changed into one. I gave the cloak back to Jade and after Wan came too, we continued moving.

After walking a little, we were before the inn Jade told me to stay in, the first day I was here. Others got inside so I followed along. We sat and someone else I thought as the innkeeper came to our table. She sat on another chair and said "So, how did it go? Have you managed to kill the boss?"

To these questions, I couldn't help but smile. Others too seemed to feel like me, since they were grinning too. Talker was Wan. "I don't know Alane, you tell me. Did we take it down?"

Alane looked at our grins then she patted Wan on the shoulder. "Good for you. Maybe you can pay your tab too. That would be miraculous."

Wan lost his grin and slowly said. "Ah. I don't think so. See, boss dropped a great dagger, so.."

Alane shook her head. "I won't force you this time. But next time, you will pay." Wan swallowed his saliva and nodded. “Good.” She then turned to me. “You must be the booster Jade was talking about.” She smiled “The one that sleeps in the slime dungeon.” I nodded to her, smiling. She turned to the table. “So. How did it go? Was the Boss as strong as I told you? Hm?”

Jade shook her head. "It had powerful attacks but the worst thing was its durability. It just didn't fall no matter what we did. In the end, we managed to deal with it somehow and that's all that matters at this point." We nodded along.

Alane slapped the table. "Well done. You are growing." She sniffed teary-eyed. "I remember when you first came. Such a young, innocent girl. When I look at you now I can't help but get emotional."

Jade looked at her blankly. “You first saw me three months ago. I didn't change at all.”

Alane shook her head. "You were only Tier 1. How can I not see you as a child? Since you are Tier 2 now, you can be counted as a teen." She chuckled at the end. She then stood up and went towards other patrons.

I looked at my companions. “So, how are we going to split the loot?”

Jade put her hand on her chin and after a while, nodded. "Wan picked the dagger, so he will be giving up on his shares of the loot other than the class' income. So we will be sharing the mana stones four ways and Class five. Does anybody have any problem with this?" No one said anything. "Then it's decided. Let's go to the guild to exchange mana stones for money." She stood up and headed to the door. We followed except Wan, who continued to sit and look at his new blade.

We reached the adventurer's guild in a minute. We got in and made our way to Hisako there. There was a bit of a crowd, so it took a few seconds to reach him. When he saw us, he smiled. “Considering your happy faces it must be a success.”

Jade nodded. “Yes. It ended much better than we hoped. In fact, we are here to exchange the mana stones we gained.”

Hisako put his arms on the counter. "Alright."

I took the stones out from my inventory one by one. We gained 105 lesser mana stones which turned out to be worth a total of 1 big silver and 5 big coppers. 1 mana stone worth 5 big coppers instead, so it was a total of 1 big silver and 1 small silver. After splitting four ways, my pay was 27 big and 5 small coppers. It was much better than what I gained in a week at the slime dungeon. 'It seems my days of sleeping there came to an end.' Another bonus for it was to be finally legible to accept quests but I wasn't very excited over it. Considering the gains of grinding the zombies, nothing seemed much. 'Well, I will have to take them just to catch different monsters eventually. Maybe when I am at the peak of Tier 1?'

"Gidget." I turned to look at the talker. It was Jade. Before she spoke, I looked around and saw that we were already at the inn. She waved her hand to get my attention. "We are here. You were spacing out there."

I shook my head. “I was just thinking about the dungeon. It was a great place to grind money. I don't understand why wasn't it already filled to the brim with adventurers though.”

Jade smiled. "It's normal since you don't know about this town." I gestured her to go on but she just motioned me to follow her. She sat on a table and I followed her lead. When I got comfortable in the chair she continued. "This town mostly has veterans. Do you know what veteran means?"

“It means experienced right?”

She nodded. "You can say that too. But it is mostly used for people beyond Tier 5." I made a low whistle. She continued. "When you are Tier 5, you don't care about silver anymore. They don't get much in the way of experience too because of Tier difference. Thus the empty low tiered dungeons."

"So there are higher-tiered dungeons here too?"

She shook her head. “No. The one we fought in was the strongest dungeon in this city. Veteran's are here to keep the number of high tiered monsters in check, so they don't flood the city and kill everyone.”

I whistled. I noticed something odd though. The humanity I know wouldn't just be content to keep their number low. They would exterminate every single monster. So.. “Can't they just kill them all?”

She smiled sadly. "No. There is a high tiered open dungeon near here. They are spawned there, so it's not really possible to kill them all for good. And before you ask, they tried to fortify around the gate to kill them as soon as they spawned but the Boss of the dungeon destroyed everything quickly."

“They can't beat the boss.”

She nodded. "The boss is just too powerful even for a raid party. And even if they slay it, it just spawns again so that doesn't solve the problem either. Luckily it doesn't move away from the gate, so there is very little possibility that it will attack this city.”

I nodded. “Well, that's something at least.” She smiled and nodded. “Moving on. What are you intend to do tomorrow?”

She leaned her back to her chair. "I will rest. Since the boss won't be spawning for a few days, we won't have to get in. We don't need the money either, so.."

It was odd. This wasn't how I imagined the adventurers. “Isn't money something hard to keep for an adventurer? I was thinking you would be constantly looking for better weapons and armors to use.”

She shook her head while absentmindedly playing with her cloak. "Some do, but I like to be a bit more laid back about my gear. You may think this odd but some people are like you described, them.. most of them don't live long lives."

I nodded. "I understand. There isn't any rush gain levels anyway." To this, she just sighed and shook her head. She then stood up and went towards the bar. That left me alone on the table.

Then I started to think about the day. I nearly died, but I was still willing to go back at the first chance to grind. "I think I am going crazy."

“Aww, don't talk like that. And even if you are crazy, I am pretty sure it's a good kind.” I looked at the talker. It was Alane. She grinned at me. “You are thinking of going back, aren't you?” I slowly nodded. She then sat on the table near me. “Let me tell you a story.”

Alane took a deep breath, looked at me then started. "There was a guy like you who liked to grind very much. He once went into a higher tier dungeon to grind with his team. The Boss was unexpectedly powerful, so it didn't go very well. When their party came back, I saw both of his arms bandaged. You may think they were broken, but no. They were crashed. His people said it was his skin and meat was what held its arm one piece. He was healed completely of course. I will give those alchemists that they can brew miracles. Anyway, the next day, while still pretty much bandaged, he was burning to go back there. "We should grind those monsters while the boss isn't there he said." She took another deep breath. "Well. His party members didn't require much persuading, so..." Here I was trying to understand the moral of the story. "Well, they went to grind. As you can see, this kind of thing is normal for adventurers." She let out a breath and looked around. "I gotta go. Patrons waiting." I nodded and she took off.